Lenger Seafoods Vietnam, a subsidiary of Yerseke, the Netherlands-based Lenger Seafoods Companies, has exported its first canned clam meat to Europe.
A ceremony to celebrate the event was held in Nam Dinh Province, where Lenger Seafoods Vietnam is based, included representatives from Vietnam’s General Department of Fisheries and provincial officials.
The company’s cargo is the first canned clam meat that has ever been shipped from Vietnam to Europe, according to a statement from Vietnam’s General Department of Fisheries on 22 November. Following this first container of 200,000 cans, the company will deliver the rest of the order, comprising 1.8 million cans in nine containers, next year.
Lenger Seafoods Vietnam has capacity to produce up to 10,000 metric tons, or 12 million cans of clam meat, annually, Lenger Sales Director Igor Kint told SeafoodSource in 2017.
The company is hoping to grow its exports to the United States, Russia, Japan, and South Korea.
In December 2021, the company was the first in the world to be granted Aquaculture Stewardship Council certification for its hard clams, raised in Nam Dinh.
Vietnam has already exported other clam products to many markets, with the E.U. being the primary market. In the first half of this year, the country exported bivalve mollusks, mostly cooked clams, worth USD 36.9 million (EUR 32.8 million) to the E.U., up 35 percent year-on-year, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers’ August report. VASEP reported prices for frozen cooked clam exported to Spain, Portugal, and Italy reaching between USD 1.30 and USD 2.50 (EUR 1.15 and EUR 2.22) per kilogram, depending on size.
Vietnam’s overall bivalve exports to all markets soared 40 percent year-on-year to USD 86.8 million (EUR 77 million) in the first half of 2021. Of the total, clams accounted for USD 62.6 million (EUR 55.6 million), or 72.1 percent of the country’s total export value of bivalve mollusks in the period, VASEP said.
Nam Dinh is the largest clam-producing province in Vietnam, with more than 2,000 hectares of farms, supplying between 35,000 and 40,000 metric tons of material clam per year.
Photo courtesy of Lenger Seafoods
